Multigenerational Warning Signs

Charles Dunn
March 17, 2011

Even with the current stringent international
standards on nuclear safety, radioactive materials are surprisingly
prevalent globally. Medical, scientific, energy, and military
applications of nuclear radiation mean that radioactive material is a
potential threat to many humans. The growing stockpile of indestructible
nuclear waste ensures that radioactive material will be a threat for not
only the near future, but also millennia from now. While international
bodies such as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) oversee
nuclear radiation safety, safety risks are inevitable, and it is
impossible to predict how long such an organization will exist to look
after spent nuclear fuel and other radioactive dangers. The IAEA and
global nuclear community require an effective, unchanging method of
conveying radiation hazards to humans not only from all over the world,
but also from many different generations if the methods are to be
effective in the long term. The IAEA has a standardized warning method
already, however, the historical changes to this method do not bode well
for a system to protect humans from nuclear waste repositories. The
problem is complicated, but interesting because of its implications to
the fields of nuclear energy, graphic design, materials science,
geology, anthropology, and even art history.

Warning Signs

Man made nuclear hazards have been present for less
than a century, and already the symbols intended to warn of danger have
changed many times. In fairness, it has only been about a century since
negative health effects were directly observed due to exposure to
radiation, and the radiation hazard signs have improved greatly over
this time.

The first warning symbols were inaccurate and
generic, and probably should have existed before the 1940's as
scientists had already been experimenting with radiation for decades.
[1] The skull and crossbones symbol was used, as well as ambiguous
lightning bolts, incorrectly implying electrical hazards. [2]

It was only in 1946, the same year that Hermann
Muller received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his work
on mutations caused by X-ray radiation, that the now well-known trefoil
symbol was born to warn of radiation dangers. [3] The sign was created
at the University of California in Berkeley, and is based on either
propeller warning signs, the three types of radiation emanating from an
atom, or the Japanese World War II flag. No matter the true origin, the
symbol has become engrained in the minds of many, but must be obvious
for all humans, as radiation is now present in "open and remote areas as
the deserts of Africa and the jungles of South America, as well as the
concrete jungles of our inner cities." [2] The trefoil's weaknesses have
been known since at least 1975, when the International Organization for
Standardization (ISO) claimed the symbol is "possibly accompanied by
additional symbols or words," making it clear that the trefoil is not
sufficient alone to convey radioactive hazards. [4]

In 2007, the IAEA released an additional nuclear
hazard symbol, as a study found that the trefoil's understanding rate
was only 6% for Brazil, Kenya, and India. The new symbol is more of
a pictograph than a symbol, which hopes to make the sign's meaning more
universal. The new sign is a combination of many symbols used to denote
radiation danger in the past: the trefoil, emanating waves, and a skull
and crossbones, any of which convey a similar meaning of danger. [2]
Despite its more intentional design, the new supplementary symbol was
not intended to replace the original trefoil, but rather to be added to
many existing radiation hazards. [5] It also has a different purpose
than the trefoil, as it is intended to signify an absolute "Do Not
Touch" message, so will not be applied to radiation sources that are
meant to be opened, such as transport packages. [6]

The new supplementary sign is the second of two
major changes to the warning symbols for radioactive dangers since just
the 1940's. For a more effective warning system, the lifetime of symbols
needs to be many orders of magnitude longer since some radiation
hazards, especially nuclear fission waste, last for an inconceivable
length of time.

Nuclear Waste

Fig. 3: Not an origin of the trefoil, but a powerful
image nonetheless. Used with permission from
Fake
Science

The almost endless storage time for nuclear wastes
is one of the most discouraging aspects of nuclear power. The inevitable
waste produced is severely radioactive for 1,000 years, when it will
still generate over 1,000 Curies per metric ton of initial heavy metal
(CU/MTIHM), which is essentially a measure of how much waste radiation
is created by a standard amount of Uranium fuel. Immediately following
spent fuel's release from a pressurized-water reactor's reprocessing,
high level waste produces a staggering 10,000,000 CU/MTHIM, a rate that
decreases exponentially with time as radioactive materials naturally
decay. Even after one million years, however, the spent fuel still
releases 10 CU/MTHIM. [7]

Practically, a nuclear waste repository must remain
untouched for 10,000 years, which is the goal of the United States'
Waste Isolation Pilot Plan (WIPP) in the Chihuahuan Desert in New
Mexico. [8] Some nuclear waste repositories, including Onkalo in
Finland, however, are being designed to keep the nuclear waste isolated
for an astonishing 100,000 years. [9] For comparison, the species homo
sapiens is on the order of 100,000 years old. [10]

The radioactive lifetime of nuclear waste makes it an
entirely unique problem for humans. Besides the immense materials
science and geological task of designing time-proof containment vessels
for the nuclear waste, a huge multidisciplinary approach is needed to
ensure that humans stay away from nuclear repositories for longer than
recorded history.

A few different teams have approached the subject in
the United Kingdom, United States, and Finland, and all conclude that
underground burial of the nuclear waste is the best option to contain
the waste physically, but some creative thinking is required to protect
future humans from accidentally or intentionally uncovering the nuclear
waste. [11]

Multigenerational Communication

The Egyptians built the Great Pyramid at Giza with
the intent that it would never be opened. Nonetheless, archeologists
have ignored the wishes of the Egyptians, and have mapped out the
interior, walked inside, and sent in robots to learn more about the
giant tomb. All of this is even after we decoded the Egyptian
hieroglyphics, due to the fortuitous discovery of the Rosetta Stone, and
understood the purpose of the pyramids. The Great Pyramid at Giza is an
amazing 4,500 years old, and yet already the changes to mankind during
that time, or even just in the last millennia, completely compromised
its impenetrability. [12] How do we possibly prevent future generations
of humans from breaching underground nuclear waste repositories for over
twice the age of the Great Pyramid at Giza?

Consultants worldwide have proposed drastically
different solutions. The US decided to focus on creating lasting markers
at the site of the nuclear waste, a plan considered to be the "long-term
concept." This strategy places very little trust in the flexibility of
knowledge, and society's ability to pass down information in a relevant
and accurate way to future generations. [13] Essentially, the group
responsible for protecting future humans from the WIPP decided that
information is too rapidly changing and hardly eternal, but physical
landmarks that convey danger on an instinctual level are more likely to
effectively keep humans away from radiation for thousands of years.
This might seem risky at first, but considering the fact that even today
abandoned mines less than a century old are often drilled into, it is
hard to trust future generations to consult archives over the locations
of nuclear waste before any kind of excavation or drilling. The proposed
physical markers themselves were hugely diverse, ranging from massive
granite blocks, to fields of spikes, to signs with a recreation of 'The
Scream.' [14] These long-term markers very intentionally built on basic
human instincts; "[t]he designs address this seemingly impossible
specification through the brilliant application of archetypal theme and
form - parched earth, snakelike earthworks, and claws and thorns - to
warn future humans of the radioactive hazards on an affective,
instinctive level.' [15]

Four separate groups were asked to analyze the
protection of the WIPP, and one group found it essential that the area
be actively guarded or patrolled. While it is unreasonable to assume
that society would unquestionably actively guard the area for ten
millennia, their group actually considered the first 200 years of
storage to be quite dangerous, but also the easiest to actively control.
[8] Active control has the added effect of protecting against people
intentionally breaching the repository to use the nuclear waste for
dirty bombs, but also highlights the weakness of the "long-term concept"
as a solution, since inhuman physical landmarks are probably
insufficient.

The Scandinavians brainstorming for the Onkalo
nuclear repository site, unlike the Americans, have focused their
efforts on keeping good archives and information on nuclear waste
repository sites, called a "short-term concept." [13] The motivation
behind a short-term concept is that any physical markers, languages, or
symbols based warnings would lose their meanings too soon.

An even more intriguing approach is not marking a
nuclear repository site at all; burying nuclear waste hundreds of meters
underground in the middle of a barren desert is a better safeguard than
any structure or warning signs that could eventually just bring
attention to the location. In fact, two of the four teams organized to
brainstorm protection ideas for WIPP agreed that no markers was the
safest approach, as it defends the nuclear waste from "curiosity
seekers." [8] More importantly, not marking the site, but creating it
in secrecy would by default add a layer of protection against anyone
seeking to use the radioactive material for harmful purposes. Not
marking the site at all completely avoids the problems of language,
symbolic, or cultural robustness, but of course adds the moral question
of our generation's responsibility to protect future generations, as
well as future generations' right to our knowledge.

Others take the conclusions of nuclear waste
protection as solid proof that our current generation should not be
producing the waste in the first place. A study of how information is
changed over millennia reveals that, for the most part, any information
designed in the near future will either be completely lost or so mutated
that its original meaning is completely lost. Furthermore, since no
physical containment schemes can unquestionably protect thousands of
future generations from being exposed to the nuclear waste, the only
reasonable conclusion is that the creation of nuclear waste repositories
will inevitably lead to human contamination at some point in the next
10,000 years. [14]

Of course, this view is pessimistic, and makes as
many guesses about the future as any other conclusion about nuclear
waste protection; technological advancement is likely, and at least over
great time scales, mankind values the pursuit and collection of
knowledge. This could mean either the eventually discover of a
short-term solution to radioactive nuclear waste, or a persistent and
active guarding of the knowledge of nuclear waste sites, if not the
sites themselves. Claiming that nuclear warning signs for nuclear waste
repositories pose an impossible problem is defeatist. Scientists
discovered how to unlock the energy stored in the nucleus of an atom;
the difficult design of warning signs is not going to keep them from
harvesting the energy. Even if no better method of disposal is found for
nuclear waste in the next 10,000 years, there is plenty of time to
continue to research effective and long-term warning methods for nuclear
radiation dangers.

[6] "Safety and Security of Radioactive Sources:
Towards a Global System for the Continuous Control of Sources throughout
Their Life Cycle," International Atomic Energy Agency,
STI/PUB/1262, November 2006.